Courses

As the title suggests, this course will offer an exploration of “the fantastic” (le fantastique) across the landscape of Francophone literature (with a special emphasis on the eighteenth century onwards). In it, students will find an “alternate version” of the Francophone canon, one that will lead them to famous and celebrated authors (from Gautier and Balzac to Monique Wittig and Maryse Condé), but through different, stranger and often neglected routes.

The course will start with a few theoretical discussions on the very idea of “the fantastic,” touching on the concept’s history as a framework to investigate the nature of beauty, reason, and “reality” itself. The bulk of the semester, however, will be spent reading literary works that explore the different emotional and aesthetic dimensions of fantasy (whimsy, morbidity, eroticism, escapism, etc.). Going even further, students will look at how different authors of fantastic literature transformed (or subverted) traditional myths, narratives, and literary tropes of Classical and European culture to fit modern concerns, anxieties, and existential demands. On that note, the course will emphasize critical, structural, and psychoanalytical readings of the fantastic, looking closely at its relationship with desire, race, and sexuality.

The syllabus is built around shorter literary forms, like novellas, contes, fairy tales, plays and essays (in addition to a few movies). That said, a few novels will be read in their entirety. Our selection of material covers a variety of styles and genres, while also allowing us to approach them through more focused exercises in close reading. Our priority will be to analyze together how the fantastic is made manifest in different ways (and what literary or cinematic tools are employed to bring it to life), but our discussions will also touch on the broader social and historical context behind each author and work.